


an unexpected alliance

by antematter



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Accidental Mating, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bodice-Ripper, Emotional Constipation, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Forced Marriage, Regency, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 11:33:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21899119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antematter/pseuds/antematter
Summary: A Regency ABO story in which Captain Kylo Ren dallies with Miss Rey Niima, and she accidentally mates him.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 154
Kudos: 946
Collections: Dev’s Reylo Favorites





	1. Chapter 1

It’s at a ball hosted by Lord Hux that she first sees him. He looms a head above everyone else, unhooking his black cloak to hand off to the attendants. Unlike the other gentlemen who are clad in a rainbow of doublets, his is black like he’s in mourning. Rey shivers. _Alpha._

Dimly she can feel her gland itching through the syrupy suppressing tonics that her companion, Miss Tico, dutifully hands her each morning. His head jerks up, as though he can sense it too.

“Miss Tico,” she murmurs to the silent lady beside her. “Who is that gentleman?”

Miss Tico’s voice is soft in her ear. “That is Captain Kylo Ren. Estranged son of Lady Leia and Lord Han Solo, Earl of Alderaan. Rumour is that he fought with Lord Solo and abandoned his family seat to go fight in the wars with Admiral Snoke before the latter perished.” She pauses. “I hear, now that it is peacetime, he seeks a wife.”

Rey has no doubt of it, as she watches Captain Ren across the crush. He is still looking everywhere, searching for something, as he moves through the crowd. He ignores the fluttering fans, the adoring gazes, and coy looks, until he is stopped by a determined hand.

“And that’s his mother,” Miss Tico says. Rey looks at the glittering woman, then drops her gaze. He is magnetic but she is too far below him.

“Let’s get some refreshments,” she says half-heartedly instead.

Miss Tico inclines her head. “Is your dance card full yet?” she asks, as they move towards the next room. Rey sneaks a glance back at Captain Solo and Lady Leia. He has her on his arm now, but she is clearly steering him towards a huddle of wealthy matrons and their daughters.

“No,” she says absently, still watching them. “For that, I fear one has to be asked to dance.”

Suddenly, Captain Ren looks up, nostrils flaring, and his gaze catches her. A jolt rushes through Rey as their eyes meet, traveling through her body. Every nerve is alight.

“Are you alright, Miss Rey,” Miss Tico asks quietly, her hand a steadying presence on Rey’s arm. “Your scent is spiking.”

Rey breaks their stare. Miss Tico is right. All around, gentlemen are shifting uncomfortably. Fortunately, this is not an uncommon occurrence at these balls, though this is the first time she’s embarrassed herself like this in public. “Some air, perhaps,” she whispers, and allows Miss Tico to lead her from the room.

The back of her neck prickles, and she can feel his eyes on her as she goes.

***

“You’re not the first girl to have these feelings,” her companion says soothingly. She brings the scent concealing salts to Rey’s nose again. “That’s why you have me, so that you’re protected from rakes and – and worse.”

“I wish I were a beta like you,” Rey says mournfully. Her reflection stares back at her. They are in the powder room, far removed from the crowd. She puts her hand to her chest, and feels her heart racing. She hasn’t even scented him yet, and she is already all aflutter.

Miss Tico watches her. “These gatherings are difficult,” she says carefully. “But you know that you must marry. Mr Plutt will not long keep an orphan past her coming of age without having her earn her keep.”

At the mention of her guardian Rey flinches, just a little. Mr. Plutt is a harsh man, but he had taken her in when her parents had died, her last remaining relative and – well, not cared for her as such, but he had certainly provided a roof over her head instead of casting her to the streets. In return, he had taken the bulk of her fortune. What he had done with her family’s little country estate miles away from the dusty streets of London, she didn’t know. He was a miserly, strict man, a beta, but she had seen him looking sideways at her when he thought she wasn’t looking: looking appreciatively, no, calculatingly at her, as her figure filled out. It’s those moments that make her bolt the door of her room at night and makes her force the tonics down her throat each morning. She’s not had a heat since she came home from school, and she certainly isn’t going to have one in the same house as Mr. Plutt.

“You’re right,” she says resolutely. “Do I look presentable?”

Miss Tico runs an affectionate hand through her curls and tightens the bow on the ribbon around her neck that hides her gland from prying eyes. “You’ll do,” she says, smiling.

***

Thankfully no one has identified her as the omega who’d allowed herself to be carried away by her emotions, and her faux pas seems to have been smoothed over. She’s only in the room a few more minutes when a man approaches with the master of ceremonies requesting to be introduced to her.

“Mr Dameron, may I present Miss Niima. Miss Niima, omega; Mr Dameron, alpha.”

He bows deeply as she curtsies in reply. “May I have this dance, Miss Niima?” She curtsies in reply, allowing him to take her gloved hand and lead her to the set.

It is a lively dance, not much for talking, but the exercise energises her, putting the events earlier in the evening from her head and she whirls on Mr Dameron’s arms to her set mates. Her face is flushed, cheeks pink, when they finish, and as he takes her arm, leading her from the dance floor. “Some refreshment?” he suggests, and Rey nods. He tells her of his recent travels to Crait, and the bathing machines they are using there. Rey isn’t quite sure of the propriety of their conversation, but Miss Tico isn’t there, and the conspiratorial wink he bestows upon her is … flattering, to say the least. Soon she is laughing, and he is smiling down at her.

“Might I call on you tomorrow,” Mr. Dameron begins. They are both looking at each other, so they do not see the hulking man in front her before Rey is walking into him. She trips into him, his scent filling her nostrils, seeping into her clothing where she is certain it will remain. His gloved hands burning on her skin.

“It is you,” he growls. She looks up into the dark glower of Captain Ren. 

Rey stumbles back, Mr. Dameron’s hand a steadying presence on her shoulder.

“Dameron, get your hands off her,” he snaps.

“Solo, your manners leave much to be desired,” Mr. Dameron says lightly. Captain Ren breathes heavily. His scent is fading now as he wrests control over himself.

“My apologies,” he forces out. “Dameron, I should like to be introduced to your friend, if you would do me the honour.”

“There!” cries Mr. Dameron gaily. “Was that so hard?” He releases his grip on Rey’s shoulder. “Miss Niima, may I have the pleasure of presenting my good friend, Captain Ren? Miss Niima, omega, Captain Ren, alpha.”

“The pleasure is mine,” Captain Ren says, lifting her hand to his lips as he bows over it. Rey shivers, though it is hot, too hot, in this room. She curtsies. “May I have the next dance, Miss Niiima?”

She nods, not quite trusting her voice. Curtseying to Mr. Dameron who has a rueful expression on his face as he bows, she allows Captain Ren to lead her to the dance floor.

The music is slower and the sets are smaller when the dance begins. Her heart is pounding still. She wonders if he can hear it. The predatory smirk on his face seems to indicate so. The dance brings them closer together, and she inhales deeply. There is a moistness between her legs that is disproportionate to the sweat on her brow. He grasps both her hands lightly. He smells of cinnamon and mint, and something darker. “I smelt you, you know,” he murmurs, just loud enough for her to hear him alone.

Rey gasps at the insolence, her earlier humiliation coming back to her. “Sir!” she exclaims in hushed tones.

His brow knits together. “Oh,” he says carelessly. “Not that, though it almost did tempt me to run after you and demand an introduction. I mean before. When I first walked in. I had to find you.” She remembers him looking everywhere – for her, it seems. They draw apart again and he hands her off to their set partner, a portly mated gentleman. She takes the opportunity to try to calm her frayed nerves, sniffing discretely at her wrist, where the dab of scent concealer lies. His hand on her wrist stops her. “Don’t. _Omega._”

He bows slowly, eyes never leaving hers, as the music fades. The gentle applause swells. He offers her his arm, and she takes it.

“You’re a mess,” he says conversationally. “We must get you out of here before anyone notices and you’re lost to polite society forever.”

He must smell her spike of panic, so close to her that he is, because he turns concerned eyes on her. “Relax, Omega, I’m only joking.”

“It’s Miss Niima to you,” Rey says pertly, proud that her voice only trembles a little.

He laughs then, a warm sound. Her heart swells. “So it is.”

“I’ve never seen you before,” Rey is emboldened. “Have you a lair you’ve been hiding in? Are you taking me to where you’ve consumed other fair maidens?”

They’re sweeping past the refreshments now, mostly concealed by shadows. No one is watching them as they retreat past the powder rooms. There is an urgency in his step that she doesn’t quite understand. Once they are out of sight of the party, he stops and turns to her. Rey takes a step back. Her back hits a wall. They are in a small passageway. He is still holding one of her hands, and he brings the other to rest on the wall beside her head, entrapping her body with his own. “There aren’t other maidens,” he whispers into her neck, tongue darting out to lick a bold stripe down her collarbone. She gasps, face flushing down to her heaving bosom. Her nipples tighten. “I should like to consume you though.”

Her face is upturned towards his as his lips crash down over her mouth. He is not gentle, nor would she expect him to be, this giant of a man who presses his body into hers, tongue slipping out into her mouth. She can feel a hardness in his breeches, pulsing against her thigh, and then against her centre as he realigns to press against her. 

“Don’t be afraid,” he murmurs. “I feel it too.”

His hand wanders into the bodice of her gown, pushing it down to expose a tanned breast. “I’m not afraid,” she pants, as he licks around the flesh, plush lips closing around her nipple. He pulls at the sensitive tip with his teeth, hand squeezing and cupping the rest of the breast. She cries out. “Alpha!”

He straightens up, rubbing the tip of her nipple with his wettened thumb. “Come then, omega.”

***

This house belongs to Lord Hux, a friend of his, he reminds her, as he pushes her, pliant and panting into the bedroom. He often stays here. These are his rooms. Her dress is askew, though he’d tucked her back into her bodice. The room is lit by only a few candles, but they illuminate the black sheets on the bed. His scent is all around her.

“Turn around,” he says, and she hastens to comply. He makes quick work of her dress and stays, until she is nude and dripping in nothing but the yellow ribbon tied tight around her gland. This he caresses before he unties it, leaving her bare. He pulls her back towards him, arms encircling her to capture her breasts again. “I love your tits,” he murmurs crudely. His mouth is dangerously close to her gland, and she arches into him, rubbing her bottom against the hardness she’d felt in his breeches before. He groans, a loud desperate sound, and she matches him in kind as he rubs his face in her gland, licks it till she’s a sopping needy mess.

Then he is turning her around while he removes his waistcoat and shirt, cravat falling by the wayside, as he slots his mouth over hers. “Yes, oh yes,” she moans, as he swallows her cries.

Her hands are everywhere on his chest: he is all smooth skin marred by scars, and hard tight muscle, and he stiffens as she trails delicate fingers over his now exposed gland on the back of his neck. Then he is throwing her onto the bed and lowering his mouth to her sex until she writhes and calls his name. “Captain,” she sobs. It’s not enough. She’s never felt so much before and it’s still not enough.

He ascends her body now, licks a trail up between her breasts until he is above her, one hand fumbling for the fall of his pants. He sits back on his haunches over her as he pulls himself free. Rey licks her lips, pushing herself up on her elbows to look at him. He is large and smooth, and she reaches down to grasp him, thumb gathering the moisture at his tip. He hisses. Curiously, she brings it to her mouth and licks. It tastes like he smells, only _more._

Captain Ren has been watching her hungrily. As her tongue darts out, he crushes her to him, covering her with kisses and bites until she is gasping again. He positions himself at her entrance. “Rey – Miss Niima,” he groans. “May I – _please,_”

Rey has been warned about men like him – gentlemen and rakes, alphas and betas – and she’s smart, always been good at school, and wary of men like Mr Plutt. But she can’t help it, can’t help but nod her assent as his scent fills her head, as desperation to be as close to him as possible creeps into every pore. Her nails scratch down his back as he slides into her with a helpless grunt. “Little wildcat,” he groans.

There is pain, but eased by her slickness. She mouths at his skin desperately as he begins to thrust, one hand snaking down between them to rub circles at her clit. She can feel herself being taken higher and higher, and falling apart, inner muscles contracting helplessly around his cock.

“Rey,” he gasps. “Rey, I’m going to –“ He convulses, and she feels him release inside her.

And she can’t help it – as the pleasure courses through her and his knot swells, she bites down hard on his gland, breaking the skin. Impossibly, she can feel his cock throbbing inside of her and a fresh wave of cum fills her.

“Did you just – “ he draws back as far as his knot allows to look at her. His eyes blown and wide. “_Omega.”_

She can’t move as he rips his cock from her, knot and all, and flips her over. The rough sheets rub her nipples and she moans like a whore as he plunges deep into her again. “You wild insolent thing,” he breathes in her ear as he thrusts in and out with abandon. “You dare mate me, tie me to you – no decency to even _ask –_ how _dare_ you – “

He reaches around, fingers tightening around the tips of her nipples, other hand on her clit, rubbing in circles just above where they are joined. He seems like a wild thing himself, and she is helpless in his grasp. And yet –

His teeth sink into her gland, and she gasps and comes again as he twists her nipples with his other hand. He’s coming again, even though his knot hasn’t deflated properly, filling and sating her. Her skin sings. She can feel him everywhere.

***

They must lie there for nigh under half an hour knotted together, bodies entwined and sweaty, her hand on his heart, still too drowsy and satisfied to think of what they have done, but then –

“Get up,” he says roughly, as he wrenches his partially deflated knot from her. She is bereft. He tosses her gown and ribbon at her. His expression is guarded and he says nothing as she silently dresses, tying the ribbon around her neck to hide her bruised gland. He is still lying there as she casts an eye back over her shoulder at him; one hand idly stroking his cock, not looking at her anymore. And she – she is ruined.

***

She runs into nobody, as she descends the silent passageway to the powder rooms. The gaiety of the party is still going on behind the doors, but she locks herself in the room, and salvages her appearance.

Somehow, she finds Miss Tico in the refreshment room: the good lady is unsuspecting, and she signals her intention to depart.

And no one is any the wiser as she sits in the carriage en route home, silent as his cum drips down her leg.

***

It takes her three days to fully appreciate what she has done. She is sitting at the window, pale and wan, as she sketches a male silhouette out onto her drawing book: all strong jaw, big ears, and long dark hair. She has managed to conceal the scar on her gland from prying eyes, and it is only really detachment she feels.

So what if she’d claimed him, and he’s claimed her back in return? It had been a temporary fit of insanity, and everyone knew that fits of insanity could be pardoned. No one in polite society talked about what happened when a bond had been made, and she certainly hadn’t a mother to explain it to her. But as far as she could tell, all she had to do was to keep taking her tonics so she never had a heat, so that he would never know she was gone or where to find her. Not that he would. He was a Marquess, even as he hid behind his Captain’s façade, and his wealth could purchase him a wife who didn’t care about the broken skin on his gland, as long as she never appeared again. For all his family knew, he could have married a girl during the war who’d died.

Her situation on the other hand was dire. What Mr Plutt would do when he realised that she was no longer a _virgo intacta _was unclear, but none of the options were likely to be pleasant. She would have to leave, and soon.

She looks at the drawing she’d done. It is unmistakably a sketch of Captain Ren. “Foolish,” she sighs, putting it aside. Opening her reticule, she counts enough for a coach fare. Perhaps if she returned to her family’s country manor, she would be able to find a few kindly families left who might still have a soft spot for her and a bit of mattress until she could decide where to go next. It was as good a plan as any other. At least then she would be able to discern if she were with child, though the tonics were supposed to also prevent that.

A clatter at the door rouses her from reverie. She looks out the window, only to see a large black carriage with fine horses stationed outside. The owner has already alighted and gone in. No doubt a fine friend of Mr Plutt’s or an important business associate.

She won’t need much to take with her, Rey thinks. Perhaps a warm cloak and some serviceable walking shoes – she has nothing of sentimental value to take. And light travel would be for the best too. Harder to trace.

A knock sounds on her door. “Come in,” she calls.

Miss Tico’s terrified face is there. “Miss Niima, _he’s _here.” Rey’s stomach plummets.

“What?”

“It’s Captain Ren,” Miss Tico clarifies. “He’s in the parlour – and your uncle wants you to come attend them both.”

***

The descent to the parlour is interminable, especially when she begins to smell him. Her stomach is aflutter, and her mouth is painfully dry.

What can he want with her, now that he’s already had her? Can he demand reparations on his person? She is painfully unfamiliar with the law surrounding bonding, but as far as she knows, no one has ever been_ imprisoned_ for mistakenly biting someone.

She knocks on the door and opens it as her uncle calls out her entrance.

Mr Plutt is sitting behind his desk, Captain Ren looming over him threateningly. In the midmorning light, Captain Ren looks too big for this shabby room. Mr Plutt is fuming quietly, the type of seething anger that Rey could expect to result in a blow to her face if he’d had more whisky, and they’d been alone. Her fear spikes anyway, and she can see the Captain’s fist clench, as if in response.

“Girl,’ Mr Plutt hisses. “Turns out you have an _admirer._”

Her gut tightens. “Sir?” her voice is no longer her own.

“This man has seen fit to make you an offer of marriage,” Mr Plutt continues, as if she hadn’t spoken. “You must have made quite the impression at the Huxs’ ball the other night, if he has seen fit to bestow his favour on a worthless impertinent chit like you.” His anger makes him vitriolic.

“Sir,” Captain Ren’s expression is thunderous, and he slams his fist down on Mr Plutt’s desk. “You have given your blessing, and that is quite enough from you.”

Mr Plutt cowers, but only for a moment, before he regains his composure. “She’s nothing,” he sneers.

“But not to me,” Captain Ren answers evenly. Rey is keenly attuned to his anger, and she can feel it flaring – on her behalf?

“I accept,” she says quickly, before objects can be thrown. What other choice has she? The Captain looks at her for the first time. If she’d hoped for a softening in his expression, there is none. He is trapped, she realises, trapped into this marriage that he’d never hoped for. All because she … well, she couldn’t keep her teeth to herself.

“Very well,” Mr Plutt says. “Your bride, Captain Ren.”

“There will be no claiming ceremony,” he says coldly. He still hasn’t looked away. “My family doesn’t hold with such crude rituals. Such things should be private.” His lip curls. Her gland tingles as her weak pitiful heart crumples with despair. “I’ll come for her by the end of the week.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: domestic violence (not between Ben and Rey) in the first section - start reading at the first *** if you want to skip this.

He is a man of his word. Within the week, the marriage articles are drawn up and the special license is procured, or so Mr Plutt informs her one afternoon over dinner, his partially masticated food hanging out of his mouth. There is spittle on his beard. He mostly keeps away from her now, and she would have suspected Captain Ren to have had something to do with it except he’s made it entirely too clear that he doesn’t actually care.

“He must be in a hurry,” he spits at her. “You’re nothing girl, don’t you forget it. There’s only one thing he wants you for, and once he’s got it – no good coming back crying to your uncle Plutt.”

It’s true, she thinks, trying to keep her eyes down at her food and away from any flying fists that might be coming her way. Mr Plutt’s already halfway to drunk, even though it’s only midday.

“Wrung me out to dry though, that one,” Mr Plutt won’t stop ranting. “He should be paying me really. Lord knows I’ve spent enough money on you and that useless companion of yours.” A gleam enters his eyes as he drains his glass dry. “What did you do for him to make him offer for you, eh? Why would someone like him offer for someone so low as you? Did you suck his cock, girl? Let him between those legs of yours? No, if you had, he wouldn’t be so quick to come begging for your hand, would he? Answer me!”

He’s no gentleman, Rey thinks fiercely, staring down at his plate. She keeps her expression blank, though her fingers trace curses on her thigh that she can’t speak. _Just because he’s right about some things doesn’t make him right about everything_. But she can’t make herself believe that Captain Ren offered for her out of love.

Mr Plutt is before her suddenly, his ale-stained breath coming hot and fast on her face. “You think you’re too good for me, do you, chit. You’re not. You’re from the same trash heap as me, and your precious Captain will realise that soon enough.”

She hears his blow to her face before she sees it, is on the floor before she feels the pain blooming on her cheek. She allows herself a moment on the floor – Mr Plutt likes to see a bit of weakness, revel in his victory – before she slowly picks herself up.

“Well,” Mr Plutt says, returning to his seat and wrapping his stinging hand around a cool glass of ale. “At least you’ll marry well. And when poor uncle Plutt comes with his debts to you, you won’t turn him away, will you?”

***

He comes for her in precisely a week as he had planned. She stands, ready to receive him, as he is announced. The bruises haven’t quite faded from her cheek, and she is still barely able to raise her right arm from where it had hit the floor, but she has gay ribbons in her hair and her gown is neat and pretty. She hopes he will find her pretty.

“Captain Ren,” she greets him, sinking into a curtsey.

“Miss Niima,” he bows.

It is an odd formality between two people who have once been so intimate, Rey thinks as she gestures for them to sit. She nods to the footman to call for tea.

“I thought I would let you know of our travel plans in person,” Captain Ren says. “I have spoken to … your guardian already, but I thought you might like to be apprised.”

Rey nods, trying to conceal her eagerness. “That’s very thoughtful of you, my lord.”

He nods, seemingly ill at ease. “I should like to be married from the chapel at my estate,” he says. “I plan for us to leave on Thursday and be wed by Friday, accompanied by your companion, unless you would like Mr Plutt to come with you.”

Rey shudders. It does not go unnoticed. “No, your plans will be quite satisfactory,” she says, trying to lighten the mood. “Though it does not leave me much time to visit all the London shops.”

Captain Rey’s visage darkens despite her poor attempt at joviality. “You will have no need for that,” he says brusquely. “I warn you, Miss Niima, I keep a tight ship. Frivolity will not be tolerated.”

Rey leans away from him, hurt. His scent has flared, though she is not sure how she had not noticed it before. “My apologies,” she says with quiet indignation. “That was merely said in jest, sir. I daresay you must think very little of me – but I am not a fortune hunter, even though you may think me a harlot.”

She rises with her teacup in hand and turns towards the window, desperate suddenly to get away from Captain Ren and his blasted scent. Beneath the window, the carriages roll down the cobblestones, the horses clopping down the street.

“It would be hypocritical of me to think you a harlot,” he murmurs in her ear, suddenly too close to her. She can feel his breath on the ribbon around her gland. Her breath quickens. “After all, it was I who propositioned you, was it not?” It is almost an apology.

His arms snake up around her – one curling possessively around her waist and pulling her flush against his solid form. His other hand trails down the hollow of her throat and into her bodice.

“I might even be tempted to do so again,” he says lowly. “What say you to an afternoon flyer, Miss Niima?”

Rey writhes in his arms, as pleasurable sensations spread from where Captain Ren is focussing his ministrations, her bodice once again pulled down to expose her. Her cunt clenches around nothing and she rocks back against his prick, desperate for some friction. He mouths at the ribbon over her gland, and she is seized by the desire to be filled by him again, to bite down on him as he thrusts heedlessly into her. In all her years, she has never felt such desire before, even in her few heats, as she rubs at herself, futilely trying to fill the emptiness in her cunt.

And yet – despite the pleasure coursing through her body, and his warm spicy scent in her nose, there’s a niggling thought at the back of her mind.

“How have you bewitched me so,” he groans. “What arts have you employed to so wholly ensnare me?” He squeezes her ass possessively.

“Wait,” she murmurs, though she can’t remember why. It takes a moment for him to catch his breath and draw back, ever so slightly. His hand retreats till it’s resting on her shoulder and his arm around her waist loosens its hold. His cock is still pulsing within its fall though, and she can feel its insistent rhythm keeping time with the clenching of her cunt.

She twists around to look at him. He looks thoroughly debauched, cravat loose around his pale throat, tenting in his breeches. She could either ravish him or rage. Anger and not a little frustration coursing through her, Rey picks the latter. “You have thoroughly insulted me in every way possible, sir,” she says coldly. “You come here, accuse me of being solely after your fortune, though I have barely any knowledge of your means, and paw at me like some great beast, even though that was how you think I entrapped you in this situation that you find so abhorrent.”

The Captain’s chest is heaving too, as though he has run a great race. His face is incredulous. Slowly, he adjusts his breeches, uncomfortable as they look, and turns away from her to adjust his cravat. As he does so, he momentarily exposes his gland, and her cunt tightens once more to see the mark she’d given him. A fresh wave of slick runs down her thigh. The Captain leans heavily on the settee, the clenching of his knuckles around a pillow the only acknowledgement of her conflict. “Abhorrent,” he says, back still firmly turned to her so she cannot see his face. “You completely miscomprehend me, madam.”

“I think not!” cries she, a tear of defeat escaping her eye. He is unmoving. She collects herself. “But it is of no matter. I am sorry you feel so thoroughly ensnared by me. It was poorly done by myself, and I will do my best to be a good wife to you, even if I am not the wife or the mate you might desire.”

Captain Ren turns back to her, the astonishment magnified on his handsome features. “The mate I desire?” he says. He is on her in a trice, grasping her by her shoulders. She yelps in pain and more unwanted tears fill her eyes as his fingers dig into the arm she’d injured in her fall. “By God, what is wrong?”

He runs a finger over her cheek to catch her tears, and inadvertently removes some of her powder. “What the devil –“ he mutters, rubbing gently at her face to reveal more of her blackened cheek.

“Sir, please don’t,” she murmurs. She winces as he catches a particularly tender spot on her face. But his face is settling into something grim, as he resolutely removes her powder.

“Who did this?” he demands to know when the extent of her bruise is revealed to him. “It was that devil Plutt, wasn’t it?” Rey turns her face away from him. “Look at me, Rey. Tell me!”

“No one,” she says resolutely, “no one. It’s all in the past, sir.”

He is holding her gently, one muscled arm supporting her back, as he reaches back to brush his finger over his bruise tenderly. The gesture is at odds with the rage on his face. “No one?” he asks, as if to confirm.

“No one,” Rey repeats.

He relinquishes his hold on her. She wraps her arms around herself, strangely bereft. “And you think I’m the beast,” he mutters, so she can barely hear him.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Thursday,” he declares, suddenly business-like. “If Thursday is favourable for you, then I will see you then.”

“Thursday,” she echoes. “Thursday would suit me very well indeed.”

***

Their departure is strangely subdued. Mr Plutt has only been home once in the two days since Captain Ren’s visit, and he had kept to his rooms. She’d only glimpsed him once in the corridor: he’d been walking with a limp, and his nose was oddly bent. He does not come out to say goodbye. Miss Tico stands beside her, supervising the footmen loading their trunks into the carriage. Rey looks back at the shabby townhouse. She’s not sorry to leave it, she realises. It had been shelter, but it hadn’t been home.

The Captain approaches her. He offers her his arm. “Have you said your goodbyes?” he asks. He has been solicitous all morning, as if to make up for the violence of their last encounter.

“I have,” she replies, granting him a small smile. “I find that short of the servants, and Cook, there aren’t many people I shall miss in town.”

“You have not met many people in society,” says he. “I can’t imagine Mr Plutt keeps very good company.”

Rey tamps down the irritation at his condescension. She is grateful to him for marrying her, is she not? And he is right after all, though the reminder of the disparity between their stations is less than welcome. How low he must think her! “I have not found his friends pleasant,” she says lightly, determined to make herself agreeable. “I am sure your friends will be much more affable.”

A small crease forms on his forehead. “Perhaps,” he says only, helping her into the carriage. He hands Miss Tico up and follows her in. Tucking the blanket around Rey, he seats himself opposite her and fixes her with an intent stare. She holds his gaze for but a few seconds before she has to look away, blushing. “I imagine we will be too occupied for the first weeks to entertain very much though.”

Rey catches Miss Tico as the latter turns her head, smiling knowingly. “What do you do for entertainment?” she asks, mainly to distract herself and the unwanted feelings running through her. Her face is still hot. “There must be plenty to do on your estate.”

“The grounds in my estate are very large,” he agrees. “Certainly the gardens are extensive, and I enjoy riding when the weather permits. But I must say, in the evenings I most enjoy the pleasure of good company when it can be had, and when it cannot – a good book will suffice.”

“I can’t imagine good company is hard to come by in your situation,” Rey says with feeling. “As the son of an Earl, and a Captain besides, you must have families visiting in the droves, if for no other reason than to introduce you to their daughters.”

He looks taken aback for only a moment, but Rey cannot bring herself to regret her directness when his expression softens. “Ah, Miss Niima,” he says, his customary smirk looking more like a wry smile. “I said _good _company, not just mere _company_. And that is hard to come by – even for an Marquess, much less a ship's Captain.”

“That is dreadful news indeed,” Rey says, as the carriage jolts into motion. “I had such high hopes.”

“Ah, I have high hopes yet, Miss Niima,” Captain Ren replies, that strange soft smile upon his face again. “I have high hopes yet.”

Somewhere out of London, her travel companions fall asleep. Miss Tico is softly snoring beside her, her head lolling gently against the side of the carriage. Captain Ren on the other hand sits ramrod straight opposite, looking as though he might spring awake at any moment.

They’ve barely had a full conversation together, Rey realises, as she watches him sleep. His features are unfurrowed by the rest, and the jolting of the carriage doesn’t seem to bother him at all. A scar bisects his face but the rest of his features are unmarred. His dark hair falls over his ears and his face. He is beautiful, she thinks. Beautiful and so much younger than he otherwise seems.

Outside, the dusty road gives way to rolling meadows. In the distance, the storm clouds gather. Rey shivers, though she is not cold. The carriage rattles as a winding wind picks up around them. Hanging out the window, she watches the fat raindrops splatter beneath the horses’ hooves. She wonders how their coachman is faring. Her pelisse seems thin and ineffective around her.

“You are cold,” Captain Ren’s voice is low and full of sleep, though he is alert as he surveys her. She wonders when he awoke. “Come, sit by me.”

Rey casts a wary eye over at Miss Tico but rises to comply. The carriage jerks as they mount stray rocks, and she stumbles into his arms, her arms latching around his neck. By fortunate happenstance, she has found a seat upon his lap and he is holding her steadily, delicately. A flush is creeping up his neck to match the rosy hue of her cheeks. She avoids his gaze. “My lady has a good seat,” he says wryly, tracing a small circle on her bare arm. She is not often lost for words, but it happens more so than not around him. He lifts her off his lap gallantly and sets her down close beside him, tucking the edge of the blanket around her. “Your hands are cold,” he remarks, taking one between both of his larger hands and rubbing them warm. “Here, have my gloves.”

She glances down at his knuckles – they are bruised and swollen. He sees where she is looking at hides his hands quickly beneath the blanket. “You are hurt, sir,” she says, slipping her bare hands to retrieve one of his.

“It is but a small matter,” Captain Ren replies, though he cannot conceal the tremor as she lifts his hand to her lips. “But look! We approach the estate!”

His estate is a dreary country manor in the foggiest part of Alderaan, but Rey hangs out of the carriage window when she sees it roll into view. There are trees and forests and so much _green _and oh, she’s so glad to leave the dirt of London behind. The wind is fresh on her face and the birds clamour as they run through the tree-lined path. The house itself is an imposing skeletal structure, all hungry bones and no flesh. _Home_, Rey thinks anyway. Maybe it’s the Captain’s bare hand in hers, or maybe it’s the thought of a hearty meal and heath, but she is suddenly warm all over.

She turns back to the Captain. He is looking at her inscrutably, but nods when he sees her looking back. “I hope it meets your expectations, madam,” he says sardonically, but she doesn’t miss the tiny squeeze he gives her hand.

The introductions are hastily made as they alight the carriage, even though the servants have all come out to greet their new mistress. “You’re not their mistress yet,” Captain Ren tells her curtly, as he sweeps her up the staircase. “Just mine.” The dismissal cuts her even as his roaming hands around her waist warm her. They ascend the carpeted stairwell, rows his ancestors peering though ornate gold frames at her.

“These are your rooms,” he tells her. “Mine are adjoining.” This time he does not blush as he gazes down at her hungrily.

“A happy convenience,” she says dryly. “One that I assume that you plan on taking full advantage of.”

“Not tonight,” he says, his voice suddenly deep. “We are not yet wed. It would be … improper.”

She chokes out a laugh, though not as free as he. Her skin is prickling to be touched. Conflict is brewing in her bosom – mostly borne of frustration and unfulfillment that he’d initiated when he imposed on her person back in her uncle’s townhouse.

“Till tomorrow then, Miss Niima,” he says, a promise.

He takes his supper in his rooms and has hers brought to her as well. But sometime after she has been scrubbed clean by the kindly lady’s maid, Jenny, she hears him moving about in his rooms, and though she lies awake in bed waiting for him, one hand rubbing idly between her legs until she cries in frustration, he does not come in.

***

The day they are wed is a misty morning. She is clad in her finest gown of yellow, with similarly coloured ribbons adorning her hair. Jenny weaves them into her hair in braids. Her footfalls are silent as she steps down the aisle in her satin slippers. The church is devoid of attendees except a man who she has never seen before who serves as their witness. Miss Tico is there too, and she dabs her eyes delicately with her handkerchief on occasion.

She cannot take her eyes off Captain Ren, though he looks anywhere but at her. He is tall and imposing and she aches to taste him. He seems to have no similar compunction though. Only his hands clenching and unclenching demonstrate his anxiety. As he slips her ring on her finger, she can feel his hands tremble. His lips on hers are the politest brush of a stranger, and it leaves her feeling oh-so-lonely. _You are nothing, _she hears Mr Plutt’s voice echo in her head, and though she is trying hard not to, she momentarily believes it.

But as they burst out of the church, the villagers have gathered. They cheer as he swings her up into the barouche, rice flying. The Captain grins suddenly, his face alight as he flings coins to the village children who scrabble to pick them up. “My wife!” he calls, and they burst into applause. “Mrs Solo!”

The light catches her eye as she looks up at him, an inexplicable weight suddenly lifted from his shoulders, and she aches for want of this changeable man.

***

She takes matters into her own hands later that afternoon when they have returned from the church. As no friends or family have attended the wedding, they are not to have a wedding breakfast. Miss Tico has made herself scarce, and she has changed out of her gown into a simple cotton dress. The house is silent, but she is bursting with want of him.

He is conveniently naked and sitting on his bed when she bursts into his room, having discharged his valet. His room is cold and bare. The fireplace is empty – at stark odds with the rich furnishings of her room.

“I am angry with you,” she declares, lifting her skirts as she clambers atop of him, pushing him backwards on his bed and spreading her thighs around him. She rubs her cunt across his cock and moans with sweet relief. She may be beneath him in society and he may regret marrying her, but at least she knows they both share this passion. He looks up at her, dazed, but a slow smirk spreading across his cheek.

“Oh?”

“You didn’t once look at me,” she accuses, grinding hard down on him. “You made me feel like nothing.”

He grasps his shaft and notches himself into her entrance. They both gasp as she sinks down sweetly.

“I couldn’t look at you,” he confesses as he bounces her up and down on his cock. “I was afraid I would try to bite you, and then everyone would know you were already my mate. Your reputation would be ruined.”

He reaches for her dress, pulling it over her head so she is as bare as he. “And last night?” she demands to know. His hips buck into hers unconsciously and she cries out. “Sir!”

“If I had come to you last night, we would never have made it to the church to be wed,” he growls.

His hands are everywhere on her, trailing a burning path across her body. One arm lifts her up and impales him back on him effortlessly. The other runs determined circles upon her clit. He leans forward to bite her breast, his intention clearly to mark. Her gland pulses as she falls apart in his arms. He clutches her closer to him, breasts brushing across his bare chest as he releases into her. “Mine,” he says feverishly. He seems barely cognisant of what he is saying. “My mate.” His knot flares, joining them together, and he rolls her so she is lying on her side, facing him. He reaches behind her, stroking her gland soothingly. She smiles up at him. His cock pulsing inside her seems to have calmed her insulted spirits.

“Alpha,” she sighs, snuggling deep into his chest. “Don’t leave me.” Her eyes threaten to close.

His breath comes out in an insulted huff. “Leave you! Have you no idea of how mating bonds work,” he whispers to her, but her eyes have already drifted shut, and she is lost to sleep. “I can’t control myself around you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Totally blown away by the response to this fic. Hope you all enjoy. I wanted to advance the plot more in this chapter, but Rey and Ben just wanted to shag. <3


	3. Chapter 3

Her husband has nightmares, Rey discovers, as she wakes in his bed. He has turned away from her, his well-muscled back exposed in the moonlight. Some of the sheets are wrapped tightly around him and, even as he thrashes, he cannot get free.

“No …” he mumbles. “I cannot do it. Do not make me.”

Rey watches him for a moment, paralysed with uncertainty. One of his arms flings free.

“Let me save him!” he cries out. “Good lord, sir, do not let him die like this!”

Rey moves towards him, untangling him from the sheets in the process. She envelops him in her arms instead, crushing her breasts against his back, and kissing the side of his neck around towards his gland. “Hush …” she whispers. “Shhh, my husband. It is in the past now.”

He stills, but she can still feel him trembling, his muscles all tensed. Acting on instinct, she licks a long soothing stripe up his gland, and lays kisses upon it. He cries out again, but it is a different cry now – all pleasure and none pain. She sucks his gland into her mouth, noticing it swell. As she does so, he presses back against her, the tension in his limbs slowly easing out.

She runs her hand down his jutting hipbone and finds his manhood ready and leaking. “Rey …” he moans, somewhere between waking and dreaming. She closes her small hand around his shaft and pumps experimentally up and down. He fucks into her hand, his tip leaking over her palm, but there is still too much friction.

_Alpha, _she thinks to herself, and clambers out from beneath the sheets, all lithe limbs and smooth skin. Her skin to his skin. His eyes are closed, but his lids begin to flutter as she slides down his body, peppering small kisses and kittenish licks down his skin. He is so much, but it’s not enough. She reaches his manhood and frees it from beneath the sheets. In the dim moonlight, she can make it out: thick and pulsing. He quivers and cries out as she envelopes him within her mouth. “Mm …” she sighs around his length. He tastes like home.

She can feel him wake in earnest as she rocks her head into his pelvis, eyes searching for his approval. His abdominal muscles tightening. “Rey!” he gasps, and he is all Kylo and none of him Captain in that moment.

She releases his prick with a lewd pop. “Sir?” she says wiping her mouth.

“What are you doing?”

She huffs a laugh, pumping his spit-moistened cock up and down, eliciting a grunt from him. “If you don’t know, husband, I must be doing it wrong.”

He groans as she licks around his head and up and down the slit at the end of his member.

“This … this is not proper. You are my _wife,_ not my whore.” But Captain Ren’s usual authoritative manner is gone, and the small thrusts he makes with his hips belies his words.

“You are my mate,” Rey replies pertly. “And you seemed troubled, sir.” Yes, those altruistic motives had almost definitely been there, she thinks to herself as she slots her mouth over his thick bulbous head again. But it really been an overwhelming need to soothe her Alpha, to please and to taste him. She can feel the tension in his well-muscled thighs as he endeavours to protest, to hold still. But she swirls her tongue around his cock, and hums in satisfaction as his hands come up around her head. He pushes, setting the rhythm with his hands and his hips, as they buck up into her mouth. She can feel how close he is to being unmanned by the pulsing in his sack. Her breasts drag on his legs and she moans around him again.

“Rey, Rey!” He tugs on her hair as he tries to warn her. But his warnings are lost in his deep guttural groan as he finds his release, spurting thickly into her mouth. She swallows most of him down in satisfaction, but he pulls her off his cock with urgency, cum dribbling onto her breasts, and mounts her from behind.

She cries out in surprise but understands when she feels his knot expand and pulse inside her, locking them together. He presses her deep into the mattress, unmanned. His weight atop her is pleasing and she falls slowly asleep with him still deep within her, his mouth on her gland and his voice whispering words in her ear that she can’t quite make out.

In the morning though, he is gone and she is left in a bed surrounded by his scent.

***

They fall into a routine. Each morning he is gone when she wakes, and though she wanders the empty corridors on occasion, the house is entirely too large for her to find him. She takes breakfast with him late in the morning, and he always smells of fresh leaves and the wide open plain. She wonders where he goes and who with. He is in his study after breakfast tending to his books and his correspondence, and sometimes when the door is open, she sits in the corner of his room reading a book. She is embarrassingly lured to him, enticed by his scent. He does not seem to mind.

He introduces her to none of his friends, and she can only conclude that he is ashamed of her. At night she is good enough to share his bed and pump full of his seed, but he will not make her his wife in any true sense of the word. And it’s almost enough – almost – when she comes to speak with him about taking over the menus, and he crushes her against the wall of his office to lick her gland, or when she catches him in the corridor to ask him about visiting the tenants and his eyes darken with lust and she ends up with her skirts lifted, his fingers thrust deep within her. His hands are always on her, caressing her ass, lifting her skirts to swipe a taste of her moisture, to fuck her with his fingers, and always dipping into her bodice to pinch her nipples or squeeze her breasts. Her tits and clit are perpetually puffy and sensitive now, and the lightest of brush of his fingers over her dress will be enough to draw a cry from her. And every time he takes her, he finishes with a grunt of _omega_ or _mate_, and its so satisfying and _almost _enough.

The servants defer to her, but she has no real duties because he has entrusted her with none. Almost all of them have worked for him longer than she’s been alive. The housekeeper, Mrs Kanata, in particular, enjoys regaling her with tales of his youth when she realises that Rey has taken to following her around like a lonely spectre.

She particularly likes hearing the stories as Mrs Kanata inspects the dusting in the portrait gallery, because then she can put names to faces. Captain Ren’s miniature as a boy is her favourite of course, the serious dark haired boy so reminiscent of her grave husband. “Ben was always a serious boy,” Mrs Kanata says, looking fondly at the portrait. “So studious. He’d always known all the big words, but he’d never been good at putting them together to say what he means. How he feels.” She smiles. “But you’d know all about that, dear.”

She doesn’t really. But Rey isn’t made for helplessness, and she’s certainly not made for melancholy. His permission be damned, she thinks to herself as she awakes one sunny Monday morning to an empty bed once more.

The day is all blue skies and green meadows, and it fills her with a yearning to be amongst it. Not waiting for her ladies’ maid or for breakfast with her erstwhile husband, she slips out of bed, donning a simple day gown. Then she is moving through the empty house, footsteps silenced by the heavy carpet. Slipping through the back door, she stands for a moment in the open air. The fresh dewy air fills her chest.

She’s not consciously hiding, but if her path takes her away from other people, she’s certainly not complaining. The well-manicured gardens give way to open fields, and Rey suppresses the urge to roll down their gentle slopes. She spreads her arms wide instead and spins, laughing gaily to herself. Spotting a well-used lane, she runs to it, carelessly vaulting the fence.

The lane leads through a thicket of trees. There is a familiar scent in the air, and Rey briefly considers turning back. The path is well-trodden beneath her feet though, and fresh hoof marks line it. Her curiosity getting the better of her, she continues on.

Soon a cottage rises from amidst the trees, small in the distance. Rey lingers in the tree line. A familiar man on a handsome black horse has dismounted beside it. As she watches, the door to the cottage opens, and a rosy-cheeked woman emerges. She curtseys to Rey’s husband and he bows shallowly in response. They turn to go back into the cottage. Her manner with him is familiar.

Rey turns away, her heart racing. Adrenaline is rushing through her, and for a moment she’d like nothing more than to bare her teeth and sink her teeth into the Captain. _Mine_, she thinks fiercely. There is a strange ache in her chest. She raises her hand to it, as if trying to force it down. A bitterness rises on her tongue and it sobers her. _Stupid girl,_ she chides herself. _What did you expect when you took away his choice of a mate. _

Forcing her wounded feelings down, Rey turns away. One wooden step turns into another and soon she has continued along the lane, the little scene lost to her. She does not see the Captain’s face turn towards the spot where she had been, nostrils dilated and flared.

The wind is cool and soothing on her exposed gland though as she stomps through the lane, squashing every leaf in her path in angry hurt. A stone has the temerity to impede her path, and this too meets with the wrath of her boot.

“How did that pebble offend you?”

Rey jumps. A man is standing in front her, casually leaning on the stile. His friendly open face is creased with laughter.

“I suppose it didn’t,” she replies, regaining her composure. “It was merely unfortunate enough to be in the way.”

At this, the man laughs aloud. Jumping away from the stile, he gives her a short bow. “Given I am similarly in your path, I had better introduce myself before I meet the same sticky end,” he says gaily. “Mr Finn Trooper at your service ma’am. I keep one of the farms on your estate – there you can almost see it behind those trees.”

She curtsies in reply. “Miss Rey Niima,” she says.

“Pleased to meet you,” he says cheerfully. “But don’t you mean Mrs. Ben Solo?”

“Ah kriff,” she curses. “Yes, I suppose I do. Or Mrs Ren in any case, though I have never heard any one address me thus.”

Mr Trooper nods sagely. “Most of us knew the Captain before he became the Captain, if you understand my meaning. Some names are hard to forget – I daresay the Captain would agree too, though he tries very hard to forget.”

She looks at him for a moment, but the mention of her husband brings those bitter feelings back to the surface. “Are you on your way back to the house, Mr Trooper?” she asks, mainly to change the subject.

He shakes his head. “No, just out to take in the air,” he says. “Shall I accompany you on your walk, ma’am? I am sure the Captain would hate for you to be unaccompanied and alone if you should twist your ankle or take a fall.”

Rey shrugs. She has had her fair share of unaccompanied jaunts, but this morning she finds she would prefer not to be left alone with her unwanted thoughts. “IF it please you,” she says. “I should like to meet some of the tenants.

Mr Trooper gallantly offers her his arm to help her over the stile. “Well, there are many,” he says. “I fear we shall not get to them all.”

“That is no matter,” Rey replies. “I daresay I will have many unoccupied mornings to come.”

Mr Trooper is a good companion, she discovers, and a distracting one. He takes her past his farm taking the time to point out his favourite sheep. He is a widower and the way he speaks – quickly, with his words tumbling out one after another, as though they’d been pressed tightly back behind his teeth – makes her think that he is lonely. It has been some years since his wife had passed, but he is young still, and the farm takes up much of his time.

He leads her to the next cottage, pulling her towards door, even as she demurs, suddenly shy. “Mrs Smith!” he calls, rapping firmly on the door.

The door opens, and a cheery round woman peers out, her arms full of an equally happy babe. “Mr Trooper! Be off with you – it is far too early for such a visit!” But her eyes twinkle merrily, and her face crinkles with mirth. “Ah, you might as well come in if you’re so determined to stay. Who have we here?”

“Lady of the manor,” Mr Trooper says. “This is Mrs Solo – Mrs Solo, Mrs Smith.”

“It’s Rey,” Rey blurts out.

Mrs Smith smiles broadly and curtseys low, though the baby squawks in protest. “Mrs Rey! How lovely of you to come calling. Jane Smith. My husband Martin and I have been on this land since your husband took over care of it from his father – such good lords, and so kindly, the both of them. This babe here is ‘Livia – we have three more, but they’re out in the fields with their father, no doubt. The walls aren’t enough to contain children when they wake up with as much energy as those children have. But you might know about that.” She casts a friendly eye at Rey’s flat belly.

“Mrs Smith!” Mr Trooper chides laughingly.

“Ah, don’t mind me, Mrs Rey.” She smiles, and it is impossible for Rey to take offence. “Just an old woman, happy to see the master so wonderfully settled.”

_Not as wonderfully settled as he’d like_, Rey thinks stricken, an image of particularly rosy-cheeked girl flashing before her. “He is very good,” she says instead. “I hope you will be happy for me to call on you later in the week. Perhaps between the two of you, you might advise me on how I can be of most assistance to the tenants on the estate. I should like to be of use.”

“Bless you,” Mrs Smith says. “But you had better wait for the month to be up before you spread yourself too thin. What has it been – but a week since your bonding?”

Rey goes to shake her head, then stops herself. It had been a week since their wedding, but already two weeks since she’d mated the Captain and he had responded in kind. She nods instead.

“Goodness, it’s still your mating month. I’m surprised the Captain has deigned to let you out of the manor!” Mrs Smith exclaims, eying her shrewdly. “You need to conserve your strength for his r-“

“Mrs Smith!” Finn interrupts, cheeks aflame. “This is hardly proper conversation.”

Mrs Smith laughs unashamedly, rocking the baby. “Ah, you don’t blame a mother, do you Mrs Rey? But I daresay they prepare young girls well enough these days – my eldest daughter can tell me all about mating rituals and bonds already and she’s only eleven. Goodness knows when I first married Martin I had no idea, and his behaviour confused me to distraction.” Her voice is warm but knowing. “But women these days are fond of books are they not? I’m sure my daughter has learnt more from books than I ever told her. And I hear the Captain’s library is the biggest in the county.”

***

“You mustn’t mind Mrs Smith,” Mr Trooper says as they walk back to the house. “She means no harm – just thinks it’s her job to mother every orphan in the county.”

“I didn’t mind her,” Rey says mildly. “She was very pleasant.”

“I’m glad you think so,” Mr Trooper says. “She certainly felt it was her job to mother me when my parents passed, even though she was only five years my elder.”

“It must have been nice to have someone looking out for you,” says Rey. Her tone is more wistful than she intends.

Mr Trooper watches her thoughtfully as she carefully side-steps a puddle. The sun has moved overhead now, and her shadow is short and dumpy. “Will your family come visit you when the mating month is up?” he asks.

“Oh no,” Rey says, stumbling slightly over a branch in the path. “My parents died in a carriage accident many years back, and I wouldn’t want to see – I mean my uncle doesn’t like leaving London.”

Mr Trooper offers his arm to steady her. “Well,’ he says. “Forgive my familiarity, ma’am, but I hope you’ll find family on this estate as I have.”

***

The first sign of trouble is the heady cinnamon-and-chocolate scent on the breeze as they approach the manor. The second is Mr Trooper’s nervous shifting from foot to foot as he slows to a stop.

“I’d better leave you here,” he says, nervous for the first time during their walk. “I hadn’t realised you had been married so little time – or that you will still in the throes of your mating month.”

Rey looks nonplussed. “You won’t come in for some tea?” she asks.

Mr Trooper shakes his head. “I’d better not. I don’t think the master would appreciate that.”

Rey frowns. “Alright,” she says. “May I walk out with you a little later in the week? I should like to visit more tenants.”

Mr Trooper nods, though his brow is still clouded with discomfort. “If you think it wise,” he says. “But perhaps we should drive out instead. The estate is quite large.”

She nods the wisdom of his plan. “Till next time then, Mr Trooper,” she says, curtseying to take her leave. He bows and turns to leave, though his haste makes it seem like more of a retreat.

Putting it behind her, Rey continues along the path. The stables are below her, and she pauses, suddenly seized by the impulse to go visit the horses. Distantly she wonders if her husband’s horse is there.

The delicious scent on the breeze is stronger here, Rey thinks, as she slips inside. The sturdy wooden building is deserted, but for the muffled whinnying of the horses. She really must order a riding habit the next time she writes to London, she thinks dimly, as she walks up the aisle.

Her husband’s horse is at the end of the row. _Silencer_, its brassy nameplate reads, and she runs her hand over it, feeling the grooves. The horse sticks its nose over the door to greet her, and she runs a soothing hand down his hot nose. He nickers.

“You should be careful,” her husband’s low voice sounds from behind her, suddenly very close. She can taste his scent now, and his unmistakable arousal. She wonders how he managed to sneak up on her like that. “Silencer’s taken off many a man’s fingers before.”

“He seems to like me,” Rey says obstinately, not turning around to look at him.

She can feel his heat as he draws near. “He’s not the only one. Where have you been?” he growls. The low rasp of his voice goes straight to her cunt and she shivers.

“Just out walking,” she says.

“Who with?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” she snaps before she can stop herself. “I met one of your tenants – a Mr Trooper. He was solicitous – more solicitous than you’ve been of late.”

“I can smell him on you,” Captain Ren says quietly, dangerously. He puts a heavy hand on her shoulder and spins her around, backing her into a nearby empty stall. “You stink of him.”

The wood of the stable rubs her back as he presses his body to hers, slotting his lips down over hers. His tongue slips into her mouth, caressing her tongue, and his hands are everywhere. “You smell obscene,” he snarls. “You should smell of me, not him.”

Rey feels like she is on fire. Her hands go to his head, tangling in his dark hair, and he groans. She can feel him pulsing against her, and she grips his ass, pulling him closer. “Mine,” she gasps. She can’t get the image of the girl at the cottage out of her head. Did he do this with her too? Or did he lay her down in a bed, kiss her sweetly like a lover, not like this – rough and possessive and pillaging. His hands, too large, fumble with the buttons of her dress. He grunts in frustration as they resist him, seizing the two joins of fabric and rending them apart. The buttons go flying, and he pulls back from her as she is exposed before him.

“That’s better,” he says. His voice is eerily controlled, though his hair is mussed and he is tenting in his breeches.

Rey stands before him. He is so beautiful in his lust. She lets the ripped dress fall from her body until she is standing there naked before him. He pushes her down so that she is kneeling in the hay. “Captain,” she pleads, desperate for them to be joined.

“No,” he snaps. “I can’t think when you’re like this, smelling of another alpha.” She wants to explain that she hadn’t known Mr Trooper was an alpha – hadn’t smelt it on him. But Captain Ren sits down heavily on a stool in front of her, unbuttoning his fall. His cock springs free, heavy and leaking. She reaches for him but he pushes her away. Lazily pumping himself with one hand, he trails the other over her skin, blazing a path across her body. He traces circles around the mound of one breast, then the other, then pinches each nipple in turn and over and over again, pulling each bud until it is elongated and flushed.

“Please,” Rey gasps, though she does not know what mercy she desires from him. A knot in her abdomen is unfurling and spreading down to her cunt.

He says nothing, but stares at her instead, his eyes black. His cock swells further. The head is purpled and dripping with his pre-cum. She leans forward, suddenly desperate to taste him. He lets her lick around his cock for a moment before hauling her off, face impassive. Sitting forward, one hand squeezed tight around her breast so that it is presented to him, and the other palming himself, he rubs his prick hard against her nipple so it is wet with his seed. Rey cries out, as he repeats the gesture with the other breast. “Ren,” she begs, her clit pulsating with want.

He ignores her, turning her around instead. She can feel his cock on her back, and then higher up her spine, painting his seed on her gland. As he does so, he grasps both of her breasts again and pulls hard on her nipples, and she comes apart in a thousand tiny pieces, crying his name.

When she comes back to herself again, he is holding her. Feeling the shakes recede from her body, he pushes her onto all fours. “You smell like me now,” he growls in her ear and thrusts his prick deep into her cunt. Her hand instinctively goes to her clit, but he slaps it away, replacing it with his own. He drives mercilessly into her until her arms collapse into the straw, and all she can do is lie there as he rams in and out of her, until he wrings out another orgasm from her. His fingers tightening on her hip and on her clit are the only warnings she receives of his release, as his hips stutter into hers hard enough to bruise.

“Knot me, alpha,” she begs. Then he is exploding into her cunt, knot swelling and holding them together, as he collapses into the straw on top of her once more.

“You’re mine,” he mutters in her ear. His hands, still on her body, feel like a promise.

They drift in and out of a restless sleep. Occasionally his hands will wander as they are locked together, but mostly his fingers trace reassuring circles on her hip. His body inside hers feels soothing and gives her courage to ask. “Were you worried for me?”

He takes a moment to answer. “Not rationally,” he says. “But I missed you.” This feels like a confession.

“I hate it when you’re gone when I wake,” she admits drowsily. He is silent. _I saw you,_ she wants to shout, but she cannot bring herself to utter the words, for fear it will make them true.

“I didn’t know,” he says. “It is difficult to think clearly so close – I’m just trying to prepare for my rut.” He licks the shell of her ear gently.

She shivers and clenches around him, milking him once more. He hardens within her again in response, rolling her back onto her hands and knees. “I don’t just want to be your mate,” she tells him. “I want to be your wife. I want you to confide in me and I want to help you.”

She can feel him nod against her back, as he begins to thrust again, hitting that spot within her just so. _Soon_, he mouths on her gland, but she’s not sure if he’s speaking to himself or her.


	4. Chapter 4

When the dawn breaks and the sun comes peeking through the heavy curtains, Rey stirs from sleep. Even though she is wide awake, she keeps her eyes closed to shield herself from disappointment. When the throes of their passion had passed, Captain Ren had carried her in his arms to their bedchamber and ordered a bath drawn. Acting as her lady’s maid, he had washed her tenderly like some precious thing before helping her into her nightgown. His expression had been hungry as he’d looked at her, but he had said nothing, brushing her hair instead. Rey had shivered as he’d reached a long finger to stroke the apple of her cheek. He’d kissed her unhurriedly then, before gathering her in his arms and taking her to bed.

She’d woken once during the night, and his arms had been wrapped tightly around her, his chest solidly beneath her hand.

He hadn’t had nightmares that night.

But now as the dawn breaks, Rey doesn’t want to open her eyes to see his empty side of the bed once more – she cannot bring herself to shatter the illusion, well, the illusion of being loved. She’d never felt so cherished.

“I can see you squirming,” a deep voice breaks through her morose musings. Startled, her eyes fly open. The Captain is still abed with her, all long limbs and shadowed jaw. Somehow they must have disentangled during the night. He frowns, as though displeased with their distance, and reaches across for her.

“Good morning Captain Ren,” Rey says, not quite able to hide her pleasure.

The Captain doesn’t try to hide his smile. “I wish you’d call me Kylo,” he says, propping himself up on his elbows above her. “Or perhaps – Ben.”

Then he kisses her and says no more.

***

“I should like some baskets made,” Rey says one morning at breakfast. She’d woken up with her husband’s arms around her this morning and it had made her feel warm and _safe_. “And a list of tenants and what they might need. And when I return in the afternoon, I would like us to look through the menus, Mrs Kanata. Tomorrow we can look through the rooms and see what needs changing.”

Mrs Kanata curtsies. “Yes, Mrs Solo,” she says, as she leaves the room.

Rey chances a look at Captain Ren. Today he is not reading the paper as he usually does, but staring at her instead. There is no disapproval in his look though. Instead, he winks, and she feels herself blushing.

“I have to go to town to procure a few items for the end of the month,” he tells her. “I will only be away a couple of days. Is that agreeable to you?”

Rey bites back her instinctive _no_. He’d been so courteous this week – never leaving her alone in the morning and accompanying her on walks around the estate in the afternoons. Each evening, they’d spend in his library, talking over small estate matters and the bits of news filtering through from town. Sometimes they’d just sit in silence, each engrossed in their own books. Sometimes they’d argue over literature – she liked Shakespeare’s poems, he thought the plays were far superior. _One day I’ll take you to see a play performed, _he’d vowed. _It can be a little bawdy though, so we’d best save it for after the mating month. _She’d smiled with pleasure at the thought that there’d be a one day for them where he hadn’t tired of her yet. Every couple of days she’d wonder about that rosy-cheeked maid in that little cottage and what she was doing without the Captain. But mostly she’d managed to put her from her mind.

“I hope you won’t be away too long,” she says now.

“Why,” Captain Ren smiles. She stares. His smile is wide and open and – for once – without irony. It lights up his entire visage and makes him look ten years younger. “Will you miss me, sweetheart?” Only the tips of his ears flushing are an indicator of the endearment.

Something in her stomach, or maybe her chest, gives a little flutter. “I might,” she says coyly, lowering her eyelids.

She hears him push his chair back to come around behind her. She tilts her head to one side, expecting him to lick her neck or scrape his teeth on her gland. But he does neither of these things. Instead, he wraps his arms around her and kisses her very softly on her cheek. “I’ll miss you,” he says. Rey turns her head to look at him. In that moment he seems so vulnerable.

“I’ll miss you too,” she says, and meets his lips with hers.

***

The menus take no time at all – she certainly has no strong preferences, but she has definitely noticed her husband tastes tend towards the lighter range of their generally heavy fare. They have discussed the shopping allowance, and their accounts have already been set up at the butcher and the grocer, so it is of no trouble for Mrs Kanata send an errand boy to retrieve the items.

The baskets for the tenants take a little longer, and with Christmas fast approaching, Rey wants to ensure every child on their land receives a small present or toy. For the families, however, she packs some clothing or a warm blanket, and otherwise fills the basket with food.

Miss Tico is there helping her pack things into the baskets. Her husband must have offered to pay for her employ – the idea that her uncle has continued to pay her salary is laughable. Mrs Kanata helps her, bustling around the warm kitchen, poking here and there and offering suggestions. Mostly though, she sits in her rocking chair by the fire watching her approvingly.

“Forgive me for speaking out of turn,” she says breaking the silence. “But it’s nice for the estate to have a mistress again.”

Rey smiles. “It’s nice to have a purpose,” she replies thoughtfully. “And it’s nice to have a home.”

“Well,” Mrs Kanata says. “You will always have a home with Master Solo, I daresay.”

Rey’s smile falters a little. “I miss him,” she admits. “He’s been away for longer than I expected.”

“He’s going into rut,” Mrs Kanata says bluntly. “It takes more than a few days to prepare for that.”

The idea of her husband going into rut away from her, to spend himself between the legs of another woman is unbearable to Rey. “He’s having his rut?” she repeats quietly. She is suddenly hot and cold all over.

“I thought you knew,” Mrs Kanata says. “That’s why they call it the mating month.”

Rey shakes her head distractedly. “No one … no one spoke of it at school.”

Mrs Kanata is eyeing her and the way she looks at her reminds Rey of Mrs Smith. “I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”

Rey scrapes back her chair. “I might … I might finish these later,” she says. Her voice only trembles a little, as she flees the overly warm kitchen.

***

Rey is sick and tired, she thinks as she paces the floor of her sitting room, of not knowing. Of having people talk around her designation, her mating bond, and her blasted absent husband. When she’d bitten him, she’d acted on mere instinct – she hadn’t realised there were so many _rules _around this. How many of them has she broken already? And why hadn’t anyone taught her? What good is school, she thinks angrily, if it doesn’t teach you anything that matters?

A knock on the door – Miss Tico has followed her upstairs. “Mrs Solo,” she says. “Is there anything you need?”

_Answers,_ Rey wants to demand, but Miss Tico is a beta, and will be of no help. “No …” she says dejectedly. “Nothing you can help with. But thank you.”

She waits for Miss Tico to leave the room at her dismissal, but she sits down on the settee instead. “My sister … was an omega,” she says haltingly. “That’s part of why I act as companion to young ladies such as yourself. Mating bonds aren’t something discussed in polite society and I certainly have no personal experience with it myself, which is why I haven’t broached this with you before. It wasn’t my place.”

Rey sinks down beside her waiting.

“Paige though … she did. But my father was a country squire – similar, I think, to your parents. But he – he was a simple farm boy. She’d been brought up a proper lady. She knew that he wasn’t good enough for her. But something in her was drawn to him. She could never tell me what. I believe they formalised their tie outside of the bonds of marriage.” She coughs delicately, a faint colour high on her cheeks. “My parents were furious. They disowned her. She’d brought dishonour to the family name, they’d said, and they weren’t wrong – no respectable gentleman would offer for me after Paige’s disgrace, which is why I became a companion.

“But I communicated with her later and she said she couldn’t help it. If she couldn’t be mated to him, she wanted no one else. I understand it’s to do with their biological compatibility, though she phrased it much more romantically.

“I’ve done a little reading on the topic since becoming a companion to other young omegas, and I understand this applies to all mating bonds.”

Rey considers this. “You mean …” she says slowly. “You mean that I mated Captain Ren because he was biologically compatible with me?”

The colour is more distinct on Miss Tico’s cheeks. “Is that what happened,” she laughs embarrassedly. “I’m not surprised. But yes. I think the book of bonds will tell you that you couldn’t help it anymore than he could have, um, amorous congress with someone who isn’t you.”

Rey blinks. “How unromantic,” she says.

“Is it?” Miss Tico replies, a touch wistfully. “I suppose so. Paige would have said the same thing too before she was mated. And certainly it helps enforce chastity and the sanctity of marriage – to some extent – but sometimes I would give anything to know that someone was meant for me only.” There’s something about the flickering firelight on her face that makes Rey realise suddenly that Miss Tico cannot be much older than herself.

“Anyway,” she says, matter-of-fact. “You still do have a choice. You’ve been taking your suppressing tonic, haven’t you? The bond can’t complete until you cease that. Confirmation of your bond is what the mating month is for. And you’ve already been married three weeks.”

“And how does one confirm the bond?” Rey asks.

Miss Tico shrugs. “I’m not sure. I suspect it’s something to do with ruts and heats. Everyone always says the mating month certainly makes one … terribly amorous, which is why no one calls on newlyweds till after. Certainly the book of bonding would elucidate more. I was just never permitted to access the second volume.” She smiles wryly.

“I see,” Rey says faintly. “Thank you. This has been … illuminating.”

Miss Tico smiles and stands up to leave. “Another thing,” she says sternly as a parting shot. “Stop fighting your bond. It will tear you apart if you do.”

***

Rey tosses and turns that night in her empty bed. She is sleeping in the Captain’s room in an effort to quell her tumultuous thoughts, but his scent is fading from the room already. Her mind is racing too fast and it’s too cold without Captain Ren in it. Her skin feels too tight and her muscles too tense. The sheets drag on her body unpleasantly. The house creaks too loudly, but the night is too silent. After she hears the clock on the mantlepiece tick midnight, she sits bolt upright.

“This won’t do,” Rey says aloud.

Swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, she jumps to her feet. Even though the house is silent, she feels wide awake. Somewhere outside, an owl hoots mournfully.

Her dressing gown envelops her comfortingly as she pulls it tight. Her feet are bare as she pads out of the room and down the stairs, and they carry her to the library. The shelves loom large in the darkness. Shivering, she lights a lamp.

“If I were a book on bonding,” she muses. “Where would I be hidden?”

The ladder gleams in the lamplight as if in answer and she smiles. Ascending the ladder, she peers at the dusty top shelf. The dust is heavy and itches were nose – except in front of one clearly well-thumbed book, its spine not quite in line with the rest.

Rey pulls it out. _Mating Bonds. _Triumphantly, she descends the ladder. Curling up beneath the lamp, she lets it fall open. Conveniently it falls open at exactly the right page, as though someone else has been pouring over it recently.

She reads it.

And again.

“Ah,” she says.

It is … enlightening, to say the least.

*** .

She is excessively irritable the next day. The generally unsettled feeling that kept her awake all night seems to have carried on through.

Her mood is lightened briefly when Miss Tico and her go out with a footman to take the baskets to the tenants and their children, and soothed momentarily by a warm bath that Mrs Kanata insists she takes.

But it returns with a vengeance when she is told, once again, that the Captain will not be returning that evening.

She senses the nervous glances being exchanged between the servants and she retires early to the Captain’s rooms to sulk. 

The book lies on the desk, mocking her. She glares at it, recalling the lines she’d read last night.

_The mating bond will not be complete until the alpha’s rut and the omega’s heat coincide. _

Rey considers this carefully, and that evening, she doesn’t take her suppressing tonic.

The next morning, she wakes up feverish in a cold sweat. Her cunt is empty, and oh, it pulses, but her husband is not there.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *crackles knuckles* here we go.

Rey has never felt so hot in her life. She’s lived through cold threadbare winters, her flesh barely enough to keep her warm, and even colder days, ashes in the hearth, just waiting for her parents to come rescue her from this life with Mr Plutt, but this – this she has never felt before. Her skin feels alight with a thousand flames, licking and burning mercilessly. The sheets under her scratch and pull incessantly and her shift drags on her painfully tightened nipples. And the ache – the ache in her cunt – her walls throbbing and clenching emptily around nothing as slick moistens her nether lips and spills onto her thighs. She’s burning up.

She’s had heats before – one or two pitiful malnourished heats while she was at school. She’d be barricaded in the infirmary with only an omega nurse to occasionally bring a tray and make sure she was hydrated. But this is different. Then, she’d cried out for an alpha, but her hands and the instruments that the school would provide would bring her some relief. This – this feels unquenchable.

She reaches down anyway, fumbling hopefully with the ties of her shift. Desperately, she rubs her clit a few times before thrusting two fingers into herself. She clenches her thighs together, using her other spit-slickened hand to rub at the tips of her nipples, but it’s not enough, and it’s too much, and it’s not –

“Ben,” Rey babbles. “Alpha.” _I’d be so good,_ she thinks desperately. _I’d be so good for your knot. _Is it possible to die from want? Rolling over onto her hands and knees, fingers still thrusting wildly, she buries her face in his pillow, breathes in his fading scent. Her orgasm rolls through her unexpectedly, a weak, dissatisfying thing. She cries tears of frustration as it fades as quickly as it’d started, rubbing herself against his side of the bed as the ache starts up again. Her thrusts and pinches get rougher, but the next orgasm isn’t enough to satisfy her, nor the next. The bed is soaked with her fluids now, and she cannot think. Her gland is itching, then burning, but nothing she does will soothe it. “Ben –“

***

“The mistress is in a bad way,” Jenny, Rey’s lady’s maid whispers to Miss Tico, as the latter grimly prepares the tray to take to Rey.

“Is that so.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the girl continues fearfully. “She cries and cries. Calls for the master, but he’s not here, Miss, and she sounds like she might die of a broken heart.”

Miss Tico spares her a glance. “How fanciful,” she says crossly, anxiety making her tense. “People do not die of broken hearts. And the master will surely be back any moment now.” She picks up the tray. “Look, I can hear a carriage coming up the drive – maybe it is the master coming back now.”

She turns to take the tray above stairs. The house is silent but the air is thick with anticipation as she ascends the stairs, Jenny hot on her heels. Sunlight streams through a long window behind her. The clopping of galloping hooves sounds on the stones outside, but Miss Tico still starts with shock and drops the tray when the doors burst open.

Captain Ren storms in, momentarily silhouetted against the sunlight like a great hulking beast. His hair is askew, and his face is flushed. Panting heavily, he pauses only for a moment. Miss Tico half expects him to shout as he opens his mouth, full lips parting, and certainly Jenny is cowering behind her. Instead, his voice is a growl – the tremor at the end the only sign of his distress. “Where is she?”

Miss Tico fans herself. As a beta, she’s never been able to recognise scents, but she thinks she can almost smell his. “In your room, sir. She’s poorly.”

He takes the stairs two at a time, gait oddly unbalanced as if restricted. As he brushes past them, still on the stairs, she can almost swear she hears him mutter, “She’s not the only one.”

***

The corridor to his chambers seems longer than ever, Rey’s scent growing more and more pronounced as he nears it. His gland is throbbing, more swollen and warmer than ever – unbearable, really, but nowhere as excruciating as his manhood, pulsing thick and engorged in his breeches. The ride had been agonizing, but the thought of waiting for the carriage wheel to be fixed whilst rutting into his hand for one more night was unthinkable. His skin is hot and prickling, and his clothes pull restrictively around his person. His men had thought him mad when he’d mounted Silencer and ridden off into the sunset, but he’d been away for far too long – and for what? The softest down to make her nest in. Exotic delicacies to handfeed her when she grew weary from heat. He’d timed it so wrong – had been so wrong.

Ben is wild as he bursts into the room. He stumbles back a little as the smell of Rey hits him. She is naked and sobbing as she turns her face up towards him and he wastes no more time in striding forward to gather her in his arms. She is hot and golden and _his_.

“Shh…” he says. “My love, my mate – I’ve got you.”

“Ben,” Rey rasps. “Ben, it hurts.” His fingers sooth her raw skin, but she is still throbbing for want of him, slick moistening his breeches. She grinds down on him, feeling the shape of his member beneath his fall. He gasps as she does, and she can feel how ready he is. “Please,” she says. She knows she is babbling. “Please knot me.”

He thrusts up a little, and it feels so right. “No,” he groans. “No Rey, not like this.”

He kisses her then, cradling her tightly to his chest, and pulls her fingers away from herself. She cries out as he replaces them with his own, thick and callused, thumb rubbing against her clit. He lowers his lips to her breasts, ripping the shift in his haste to better expose them, and laves his tongue in wet circles around each mound, tracing smaller and smaller spirals until he nips at their very tips. “Ben,’ Rey sobs. His name is the only word she knows now. His fingers thrusting in her become more determined, more precise, and she can feel herself feeling fuller and fuller, until her pleasure crests, walls tightening around his fingers and leaking a wave of slick all over him 

Ben’s expression is stony, a muscle ticking in his jaw. He waits until her muscles have stopped rippling around him before he pulls his fingers from her and sucks on them. His pupils are black and blown, and he cannot take his eyes off her.

Rey is quiet. The fires rage on in her body, but they have calmed for the moment. For now. She can feel him pulsating beneath her, hard as steel, but he makes no move to claim her.

Slowly, he loosens his grip around her, manoeuvring her onto her belly on the sodden bed. “I would take you now,” he growls somewhere just behind her ear. “All these days in London, I have dreamt of nothing else.” He caresses her supple bottom, then taps her lightly – almost perfunctorily - with an open hand. She clenches around nothing. She can hear him breathe in and out deeply, as if trying to regain control. “But not like this.”

He pulls her back into his arms, smiling tightly a little as she whines for want of him. Wrapping a dressing gown around her, Ben picks her up easily in his arms.

“Where are we going?” Rey asks him drowsily. Her body is calm for now – all soft and pliant just from his presence – but she can feel the faint stirring of her unsated heat fast approaching.

Ben kisses her then, all demanding tongue and scraping teeth, but his words are tight and measured when he speaks. “I made you a nest,” he says.

***

He carries her out a small back door into the garden. The heat is starting to come upon her again, but Ben’s skin against hers is soothing. She has managed to pull his shirt open and is laying feverish kisses across his collarbone. “I think I like you best here,” she says, deliriously. She laves her tongue across it as if to prove her point.

Ben groans. “I think I’d like you better elsewhere,” he says tersely.

She laughs a little, head lifting up a little to capture his lips. “Where are we going?” she asks.

“We’re here,” he replies, slightly husky. Rey looks up. They are at the cottage where she’d last seen him with the rosy cheeked girl. Something tightens in her chest, jealous and angry.

“I saw you here before,” she accuses him as he steps them across the threshold, intent on his path.

“Hm?” he grunts distractedly.

A new wave of slick is upon her, a fire igniting in her bones. The ache is back and it brings with it new desire and a desperate longing for her husband, even though he is right there. _He is too composed_, she thinks and wants so much to see him unmanned. “You were with a girl,” she says with no little passion, as she sinks her teeth into his neck – just shy of his gland.

Ben’s entire body stiffens. His scent spikes.

It takes but a moment, and then he is throwing her onto the bed. She falls back with a cry of surprise, but her fall is cushioned by the endless pile of soft bedding. She inhales deeply, and it’s all just Ben’s scent, all warm and chocolate and fireplaces burning in the heath –

There is no one else’s scent here.

Her husband towers over her, fingers making quick work of his shirt, which is swiftly discarded. His expression is dark and predatory. “You’re a terrible minx, did you know that?” Ben says dangerously. “I have known this about you since we first met.”

She cannot take her eyes off him. His breeches are tented and straining, but he palms himself leisurely. He leans over her and rips her dressing gown off her so that she is completely bared to him. “Turn over,” he orders, and she hastens to comply. “Hands and knees.”

She can hear him undoing his fall, his weight shifting around her on the bed.

“I have spilled onto my sheets thinking of you,” he continues. “How could you think – even imagine – I could ever – “

His breath comes in harsh pants. Rey sneaks a look over her shoulder. He is thrusting into his own hand, as he stares down hungrily at her. “Ben, _Alpha_,” she begs. She is so empty.

He lines himself up and notches himself at her entrance. The stretch is bliss, but he does not thrust in until she is begging once more. Then, he drives himself into her tight channel, and again, and again, until she can taste his scent in the back of her mouth. His hands are everywhere, pulling and tugging, dancing over her clit, until she comes, scream choked by his fingers filling her mouth.

“_Omega,_” he growls, his release quickly following hers. His knot swells, locking them together, but she can feel that he is still hard, even as his cum fills her._ It’s not enough. _She pushes back on him, fucking herself through his knot. His hands are hard and bruising on her hips as he realises what she is doing, bouncing her hard on his knot. His voice, low in her ear, is filthy. “Ben,” she wails, as she comes again.

“You’re exquisite, omega,” he tells her, and her pleasure spikes even more. He is still coming, but his thrusts are slowing, and soon he rolls her onto her side, arms firmly around her, as his knot pulses within her. His hands stroke and soothe, but also roam and rouse, and as soon as his knot deflates, she is on him again, this time perched over him, impaled upon his cock as she rides him. Ben lets her set the pace at first, but then pulls her down so that she offers her breasts to his mouth. He suckles at them, teeth grazing and pulling, until she is writhing above him. Then he thrusts up, pulling her down hard onto him until they are both crying out their release again.

So deeply driven by her heat, Rey does not entirely realise the potency of Ben’s rut. He cannot be deep enough in her and cannot get enough of knotting her. Even when she is kneeling in front of him, throat tight around his cock, he cannot stop himself knotting her mouth, the swelling of it lodged heavily just behind her teeth. She drinks him all down, her pretty red lips wrapped around his prick, taking everything he gives her.

Her mouth occupied, he takes the opportunity to inform her. “You only saw Kay,” he says, in answer to her accusation from what seems like so long ago. “She had brought over supplies for the cottage. I couldn’t let you go hungry during your heat.”

She wants to make a reply – an apology – for doubting him, but her mouth is full of him. Ben seems to understand though. “You’re not going hungry though, are you?” he says wryly as she swallows him down once more. She gives a tiny shake of her head. He caresses her face as his knot deflates, pulling her to lie down atop him. A wave of exhaustion comes upon her, and he seems to sense it too. “Rest,” he says. He lays a sweet kiss upon her temple. She curls into him, her eyelids heavy as sleep claims her. His weight inside of her is a comfort.

She is glad of the rest later, when his full rut comes in, even as her heat rises to meet it. He loves fucking her in every position he can think of – on her back, on her side when she falls asleep, against the wall of the small cottage when she’d had the audacity to try to get out of bed for some food. And again, bent over the little kitchen table after he’d handfed her some small morsels. But his favourite is her on her hands and knees, ass in the air, with his cock deep within her and his teeth on her gland. She loves him needy and panting against her ear, hips driving into hers, comes hard against his knot, can’t stop her teeth from breaking his skin.

He can’t get enough of tasting her either. His tongue is always on her body, mouth closing around her gland, her clit, teeth scrapping and biting. He brings her to her peak with his tongue licking around her clit, two fingers in her cunt, but it is not until he pulls himself up to kiss her that she realises he has simultaneously orgasmed. She closes her hands around his desperately thickening knot, and when it is not enough, she slides down to envelope him back in her mouth.

Rey can’t understand why they haven’t been doing this longer or sooner or how he could have possibly stayed away for so long, and certainly Ben shares the same feelings.

“I’m so sorry,” he murmurs in her ear during a rare moment of lucidity. “The books all said your heat would take place at the end of the month. I didn’t realise it meant a month from when you mated me. I was a week off. I thought I had more time.”

Rey breaths shallowly. All she can focus on is the place where they are joined, and how he is warm and throbbing and swollen, and she – well, she is warm and throbbing and slick.

“No one ever told me. My father never spoke about finding my mate or how any of it was done – he was never around. I won’t be like that, Rey, I’m so sorry.”

She would reply, really, she means to, but his knot has deflated and he is threatening to disengage from her, so all that she manages to tell him is that she won’t forgive him unless he stops talking and knots her again.

“Yes Miss Niima,” he replies with a cheeky grin which disappears swiftly as he slides into her with a grunt.

She gasps then, fucking herself back onto his prick with a lewd moan. One hand ghosts down between her legs to rub frantically at her clit. “Please, sir,” she says, trying to affect disdain. “That’s Mrs Solo to you.”

“Mrs Solo,” he groans, hips stuttering into hers with renewed force, and then he is coming, and she is coming again with him.

Later when her need has abated ever so slightly, she kisses him lightly on the nose. “Thank you for coming back,” she says. “No one’s ever come back for me before.”

He circles his arms around her, holding her like she is something precious. “I’ll always come back for you Rey.”

She believes him.

***

It can’t last forever, but it feels like it has lasted for a week when Rey wakes to him pulling at her nipples, cockhead nudging at her folds. “Ben,” she murmurs, and then with one swift thrust he impales her, fist grasping her swollen breasts for leverage. She screams in pleasure.

She returns the favour when he briefly dozes off and she wakes to find his erection hard again. Mounting him, she watches Ben’s eyes jolt open as she slides her cunt down on his cock. For a moment, he does nothing, just stares at her through hooded eyes as she fucks herself on him, just taking her pleasure. Her thighs are wet with her slick and his cum. Everything is raw, but the look in his eyes is worth it.

But the last time before her heat ends is different. Tender. They are both covered in bruises and bite marks, but he cleans her gently between her legs with a corner of the sheets. Licks every single bruise and kisses them. Sucks so gently on her gland, so that even though it is raw and throbbing, she still trembles with want. Traces small circles on her clit with his tongue until she is crying out in a new wave of slick. His fingers inside her are soft on her inner walls – _oh, just there – _as if to coax her orgasm from her. And as she falls apart, he just stares and stares as if she is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

“Ben,” she begs. “Ben please.”

He obliges. He slides into her with a gentle sigh. They are chest to chest, his body curled protectively around her smaller frame. As Ben rocks into her, he leans down and captures her lips, tongue slipping into her mouth to gently stroke against hers. The sheer overwhelming feeling of safety wells up within her, and Rey has to blink back tears.

“My love,” Ben says, kissing away the tears. “My love, what is the matter?”

“I – “ Rey chokes out, burying her face in his chest. “I find that I am irrevocably in love with you.”

She dares not meet his eyes as his hips snap into hers, faster and faster. She is already slick with her previous orgasm, so though she feels sore and used, his prick pistoning in and out of her is satisfying nonetheless. Her cheeks burn with his silence.

But Ben licks down the side of her neck, laying tiny butterfly kisses and laving his tongue over her collarbone. She moans, distracted, and angles her head away from him to expose more of her skin for him. His cock rubs hard against that part deep inside her, his fingers simultaneously ghosting over her clit, and she is helplessly coming again, swept away by the tide of him. As her muscles clench around him, she can feel him desperately thrusting harder and harder, seeking his own release. She can only bury her face in his neck, clinging to him. And in her peak, she feels his teeth scraping at the gland, and then clamping down. She screams as his knot surges and sinks her mouth over his gland in term. He comes then with a shout, his seed filling her to the brim once more.

“I love you,” he gasps as he releases her gland, hearts beating wildly in time. “I have loved none but you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to everyone for all the kudos & comments - the response to this has been amazing. likely a soft epilogue to follow, but otherwise this has been a fun ride; thanks for coming along with me!


	6. Epilogue

London is bustling and teeming with people, but the sounds and sights seem muted, as if by the disquiet that fills Ben. His gland is aching under his collar like a tired overused muscle, and he is so weary.

“You’re so dreary today,” Hux tells him scornfully as they step out of their club. “How tiresome it must be to mope so.”

Ben laughs – an unexpected sound. He looks at his long-time friend with exasperated fondness. “I suppose I must thank you for attempting to shake me out of my misery.”

Hux shrugs. “Such is my lot.” But there is a small smirk tugging at the edges of his mouth as he adjusts his hat atop his ginger hair. “Where is your wife this afternoon? I assume her absence is the source of your … discomfort.” He casts a disdainful gaze at Ben’s crotch.

Ben turns away. “I assure you, I am perfectly comfortable. I am not gone nearly as soft as you yet.”

Hux’s walking cane clicks along on the pavement. “How hard it must be,” he says laughing, “To have such a mate, and yet – “

“Hux,” Ben interrupts. “If you say another word, I will be forced to beat you with your own cane.”

Hux falls silent, but only for a moment. “So where is the charming Mrs Solo then?” he asks. Their tall frames part the crowd. They pass a couple of children with red noses pressed up against the glass of the sweetshop.

“She’s with my mother,” Ben says shortly.

Hux’s laughter fills the cold air. “Ah, I see,” he says. “Tell me – was this your idea or hers?”

“Most unfortunately – hers. I believe they are taking tea now.”

“You have used me most ill,” Hux says. “I thought you merely sought the pleasure of my company, but you have used me as a ruse to hide from your mother.”

Ben wrinkles his nose grumpily. “The contrary,” he replies. “We have dined with my parents more in the last two months than I have in the past five years. But today Rey insisted I leave her to my mother’s devices alone.” They have reached the Park now. Carriages clip past, women in gaily coloured bonnets inside. A few of the men passing tip their hats to the pair of them. “I have better sense than to interrupt a woman’s schemes.”

“Come now,” Hux says. “We have weathered the Navy together and Old Man Snoke together. There is trouble in your countenance.”

He hesitates. “Rey has been distracted of late,” Ben admits, refusing to meet his friend’s eyes. The ducks in the pond emerge to quack hopefully at them, but Hux shakes his cane at them.

“Filthy birds,” Hux mutters. “Sorry do go on. You were telling me of the misery that is your happily mated life?”

Ben watches the ducks waddle off in search of more bread morsels. “She is perfectly attentive. But I can’t help feeling something is wrong.” He lowers his voice. “Like her scent is different.” His cheeks are stained with embarrassment as he raises his gaze to Hux’s.

Hux looks back at him, almost pityingly. “For someone so imposing, you are surprisingly obtuse sometimes,” he says, but his customary smirk is fond. “You’ve been mated for what – three months now? Probably more than that if you count from the night of my ball – ah, don’t interrupt me Ben: I am as much alpha as you, do you really think I would have missed your bruised gland at breakfast the next morning and her scent on yours? – of course, her scent is going to change.”

Ben’s mouth twists unhappily. “You don’t think I should worry?”

Hux rolls his eyes. “What would you have to worry about? If you’re going to worry about someone, worry about me. I am five and thirty; and am yet to find any omega’s scent as irresistible as you clearly found Miss Rey’s – as my dear mother constantly reminds me. Now that I think on it – you should host a ball for me to find my mate. It’s what you two owe me, really.”

Ben laughs despite himself. “Consider it done, my friend,” he says. “I shan’t even comment when you come down to breakfast the next day bruised and sated.”

They begin walking back to Ben’s townhouse, mostly in silence.

On Ben’s doorstep, Hux bows slightly. “I shall see you for dinner in a few nights’ time,” he says formally. “My best wishes to your lovely wife.”

Ben bows in return. “Thank you for your discretion, old friend,” he says.

Hux studies him. “You truly have no cause for worry.”

Ben nods. “I know that,” he admits. “This … this happiness is just too much. Undeserved, really, after all the wrongs I’ve done. I just want her to be as happy as she makes me.”

Hux smiles. “I think you’ll find,” he says slowly. “Her scent likely smells more like yours now.”

Ben nods, halfway turned to ascend the steps into his townhouse, when he hears Hux’s mutter in his ear, a parting shot. “Also, you’d be sooner forced to beat your own cane than mine,” but when he turns around, his friend has gone and he has to laugh.

***

Rey is at the window in her bedroom when Ben bursts in. She half turns towards him, face lighting up at the sight of him. She is so beautiful, he thinks as he breathes deep of her scent, drinking in of her smile; his heart filling unexpectedly.

“Hello, husband,” she says, voice low and sultry.

“Hello, wife,” he says, and in two strides, he is across the room, gathering her in his arms and pulling her back tightly to his chest, and her rump against his rapidly swelling breeches. She gasps at his sudden proximity as he lowers his mouth to her gland. Her dark hair is pulled up, exposing her throbbing flesh to him. She is pliant and soft in his arms, the silk of her dressing gown delicate beneath his large calloused fingers as he pulls it away from her skin, sliding it off her shoulders so she is fully bared to him.

She grips his hand with ferocity, bracing herself against the window sill with the other hand. He ruts against her roughly, massaging her breasts and rolling her nipples in his hands until she cries out. “You’re so good for me, my love,” he forces out in between sucking on her gland. Her breasts are swollen – more swollen than usual, and her nipples are fat and tight. He tugs on them roughly, cock swelling as she moans and bucks backwards into him. One of her hands has dipped into her core, and he lets her. He can smell how wet she is.

With business-like efficiency, he unbuttons his fall, and impales her, her wet heat enveloping and clenching around him. She cries out, his head nudging against a particularly satisfying spot. “You don’t know you do to me,” he grunts, thrusting in and out helplessly as he continues to squeeze her breasts. “I’d keep you knotted to me forever if I could. No sooner would my knot deflate before I’d fill you again.”

“Ben,” she gasps. “Ben, you fill me so well.”

He knocks her hand away from herself and strokes her clit, cock hitting that same spot again, and again, and again, and she is crying out and coming, and he is coming with her, knot inflating and locking them together. She is soft and malleable as he drags her backwards onto her bed, collapsing there together.

She keens slightly as he strokes her skin, tracing patterns down her belly. “You’re very enthused today, Captain,” she teases when she comes back into herself again. His knot is still pulsing in her.

“I missed you,” he says.

“I’ll allow it, I suppose,” she says smilingly.

He breathes deeply into her gland. “There’s something different about you,” he says, poking his tongue out to lick her gland thoughtfully. “You smell different.” He licks her again. “You taste different too.”

He can feel her tense around him, and he thinks he finally understands.

“Ben, I – “

“Shhh …” he licks her gland again, then in slow sultry circles around her neck. He’s not sure when he started to cry. “Rey, Rey, sweetheart. I’m not a nice man. I’ve done so many wrongs. How could I possibly deserve you?”

Her breathing is ragged, but she grasps his hand and presses it to her stomach. “Ben,” she says. “I’m with child.”

He can smell it. Her scent, mingled with his, and her taste – her taste as he peppers kisses over her lovely smiling face, wet with his tears –.

She tastes like home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this epilogue was supposed to be soft and g rated. oh well. <3

**Author's Note:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
